STATE-OWNED CITRUS RESEARCH GROVE TESTED FOR CANKER

A state-owned citrus research grove is undergoing checks for citrus canker because fruit which may have come from there has been found to have the disease.

State officials said the possibility was "remote" that the canker came from their grove, which supplies nurseries throughout the state. They said, however, that tests were being conducted.

Leon Hebb, assistant chief of the state Pest Eradication and Control Bureau, said the 40-acre state plot is vital to the $1 billion-a-year Florida citrus industry because the facility near Orlando is the repository of all varieties of fruit in the state.

"This is the mother block of the entire industry, the reserve of all the bloodlines," Hebb said.

Repeated tests of the state grove turned up no signs of canker in the past week, but they were being continued in light of the newest discovery.

Grower Franklyn Ward, in whose nursery the canker was found last year, said the location is suspicious.

"Where the infestation showed up is in the middle of the stuff we got from the state," Ward said.

Ward's commercial nursery, which has since been closed, was the site last year of the state's first canker outbreak in 50 years.

The find at the new nursery was the state's second last month. The disease was confirmed at the Adams Citrus Nursery in Haines City Aug. 16.

Ward said the canker found at his operation had gone no further because it involved seedlings he alone used and they had not been sold to anyone.

But The big fear is that the state-owned grove at Dundee is infested, because it provides seedlings to hundreds of growers.

"If it comes in positive in our foundation block, it will affect many, many nurseries. It's devastating even to think about," said Emery Schmidt, a spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture.